Italy vote 'will help Berlusconi'

Demonstrations against the bill outside Italy's Senate

ROME, Italy -- Italy's Senate has passed by a hefty majority a bill that opposition leaders argue could help Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi in a corruption case tied to his business empire.

The measure drew protests from dozens of people rallying outside the chamber, shouting "shame, shame," while senators in the centre-left opposition walked out in protest after the vote.

The law, pushed rapidly through the Senate by sponsors from Berlusconi's conservative coalition, was passed by a 162-9 vote.

The bill would allow defendants to ask for their trials to be annulled or moved to another court if they have "legitimate suspicion" that judges are biased against them.

Berlusconi is on trial in Milan for allegedly bribing judges during the 1980s. He has long proclaimed his innocence and says he is the victim of prosecutors he contends sympathise with the left.

Berlusconi's backers say the law is necessary to protect those prosecuted in politically motivated cases.

The bill must still be approved by the lower Chamber of Deputies, where the government also has a comfortable majority, after it returns from summer recess in September.

If approved by both chambers, the measure would be applied to current court cases, including the one in Milan involving Berlusconi and a former aide, Cesare Previti.

Berlusconi and Previti, a lawmaker in the Premier's Forza Italia party, are standing trial on charges they bribed judges who were ruling on the sale of a state-owned food company in the mid-1980s.

The two men deny any wrongdoing. They have asked for the trial to be moved from Milan, where they contend they cannot get a fair hearing because of the judges' alleged leftist leanings.

Berlusconi has faced proceedings over a number of allegations stemming from his vast business empire, which includes TV stations, newspapers, and one of the country's most successful soccer clubs, AC Milan.

The charges have included false accounting, illegally financing his political party, and the bribing of tax-police officials. He has been acquitted in several cases, and others have been dropped due to expiring statute of limitations.